


Heavy Lies the Crown

by bowyer



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: (just in a different way), Alternate Universe - No Smaug, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Civil War, Coup d'état, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Gen, Historical Fantasy, Historical References, If you study the Wars of the Roses you might recognise certain aspects, Illegitimacy, Politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-26 00:51:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowyer/pseuds/bowyer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>or The Tale of The Usurpation and The Readeption of The Line of Durin.</i>
</p>
<p>Nori's a baseborn thief who claims his home as nowhere and allegiance to no one. But when he encounters a young dwarf in the cells he's languishing after a failed pickpocketing, it sets in place a chain of events that will throw Nori and his family into the heart of a political battle that he's not even sure he supports.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red Sky

**Author's Note:**

> So, as RtHon continues to not play ball with me, I thought I'd throw my hand at a different type of politics! Funnily enough, this came to me in a dream. 
> 
> The title is from ["Desires"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pxAO6zwn0w), by Anberlin. For those that follow me on [tumblr](http://fotheringhay.tumblr.com), this is indeed the "Readeption Fic" I have been babbling about since that dream.
> 
> ENJOY.
> 
> [As ever, many thanks to asssense for giving this a look over/being my sounding board. You're the light of my life ♥]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Wherein we’re introduced to the three sons of Azeri and it’s all in a day’s work for Nori._

The sky is on fire.

 

There is a crack in their wall, and the dwarf sits in his chair and watches the sun rise, his hands cupped around a chipped mug of tea.

 

 _Some dwarves,_ he told his little brother once, when said brother was young and scared of what that crack could let in; _Some dwarves would pay good money to see the sun. And you get it for free, aren’t you a lucky dwarfling?_

Red sky in the morning; watchman’s warning.

 

He has swept the porch already today, in the half-light that’s the fading of the street lamps. He likes to start his chores early; get some of them out of the way before he’s at work and then there’s less to do when he gets home.

 

(And, besides, there are less people around, before dawn.)

 

He has to move soon. He has to get ready for work, get his little brother up, and make sure he’s all sorted for his apprenticeship. He has to put supper on the fire so it’ll be cooked by the time he comes home, his hands calloused and dyed and raw. But for the minute, he can just stay, watching the red sky dissipate into dull grey clouds and the palest blue. The clouds are thick and heavy, and he’s pleased for the stone that surrounds him.

 

The men in Dale will have to walk through the rain later, hurrying along so it doesn’t splash into their boots and shivering when it drips down their neck. All he needs to do is make sure the crack in their wall is covered, and they will stay dry.

 

He drinks the dregs of his tea with a sigh that almost masks the sound of the front door creaking open. He tenses, his hand reaching out of its own accord to curl around the handle of their old iron poker.

 

“Bit early for you to be up, ain’t it?” A voice says, closing the door behind them. “And you should really get that door seen to. Shouldn’t creak like that. Hinges might be bad.”

 

The first dwarf draws in another breath that whistles through his teeth. “ _Nori_.”

 

Nori grins, his hair as red as the morning sky, and just as dangerous to watchmen. “Mornin’, brother.”

 

\---

 

Contrary to popular belief, Nori _does_ care about people, and think about the trouble he might cause them.

 

Which is why he broke in the morning _after_ he’d drank his body weight in ale, and not whilst he was still trying to sing his way through his repertoire of traditional dwarvish songs. No, something had prevented him from making those final steps, and so he’d made his way to a companion’s bed, being the noble and sacrificing middle brother that he is.

 

(Of course, being woken up with a hand on his cock isn’t something that tends to happen in his brothers’ house. Not that that’s got _anything_ to do with _anything_.)

 

“…Eight _months_ , Nori!” Dori is still talking at him, even as he digs out the coffee grounds from the very back of the cupboard. “Eight months, and not even a _note_ – and I _know_ you could have sent word with some of your disreputable –”

 

“Dori, Dori, Dori,” he straightens up from his inspection of one of the lower cabinets, where Dori keeps the perishables. “Brother, let’s not –”

 

He stops attempting to embrace his older brother when the poker resurfaces in a warning point. “Eight months. Not a word.”

 

“Grumpy old bugger,” Nori mutters, not loud enough for his brother to hear.

 

He takes a seat and pulls it closer to the fire, debating on poking his brother in the side, where he’s most ticklish. The poker, leaning innocuously against the wall, puts paid to that decision. He knows far too well how good Dori is at wielding it.

 

Instead, he turns his eye to his brother’s back, looking him up and down critically. “Is that a new tunic?” he asks, already knowing the answer.

 

Dori raises an eyebrow at him. “Have you seen how fast dwarflings grow?”

 

“I’m sure Ori would love to hear you calling him that,” he sinks down in his chair slightly. The tunic is fading from the dusky purple it once was, the elbows patched up with fabric almost the same colour, the embroidery worn and almost indistinguishable. Nori swallows, not anticipating the sudden rush of guilt that floods through his bones.

 

He slips the pouch of coins off one of his belt loops and hides it in the cast iron pot that Dori uses to hold potatoes in.

 

His older brother’s eyes flicker, but Dori says nothing.

 

“Cheers,” Nori accepts the mug of coffee he’s offered. “So… it’s been…”

 

“Trade fell through,” Dori pours himself another mug of tea, brushing his thumb absently over the chip in the rim. “Bad harvest; Dale didn’t have much wool to sell. Drink your coffee before it cools, Trouble.”

 

He scuffs his shoes along the stone floor and then buries them under the worn patchwork rug, blowing on his coffee and watching the ripples and waves crash against the ceramic sides. His mug has no chips in it, despite the fact he can distinctly remember being the one to cause the chip in Dori’s.

 

“I was East, before I came here,” he says, when the silence is roaring too loud in his ears. He can hear the people outside of their small house starting to move around. “I picked up some of that tea you like. It’s in my pack.” His brother looks down at his drink, but Nori thinks he can see his lips curve in a grin. “They think the Durins are cursed, y’know.”

 

Dori’s eyes shoot up again, silver-grey orbs focusing suddenly on Nori’s face. “I’ve heard people say that, aye,” he nods. “Can’t see it myself. They can’t control the weather.”

 

“Thorin Oakenarse probably thinks he can,” Nori snorts.

 

His brother is definitely hiding a smile, even as he chastises him with _shh_ ing noises. “I’m glad you’re not here full time,” he jokes – at least, Nori _thinks_ it’s a joke? Dori’s not great at them, but he’s normally muttering under his breath about how Nori should stay home more, so that would be a turn up for the books if it was the opposite all of a sudden, “You’d be arrested for treason before you’d been here a week!” He shakes his head and rises to his feet. “I have to prepare for work – wake your brother for me?”

 

“I’m –”

 

Dori raises a finger and just _looks_ at him.

 

Nori puts down his half-drunk coffee and goes to wake Ori.

 

The Eastern Elves take wildcats as pets, which fascinated Nori when he was first there. Some of them were working animals that caught rats or even hunted, but most were content to laze around the Elves’ huts, sit by the fire and eat any food that was left out. Nori thinks he’d like to be a cat.

 

He thinks of this now when he looks at his little brother, curled up into a ball with the blankets thrown haphazardly over his scrawny body. All he can see is a tuft of ginger-brown hair poking out the top. It’s the only part of Ori _actually_ on his pillow, bizarrely. To add to the feline picture the younger dwarf is painting, he’s snoring gently; it sounds like a cat purring.

 

“Wakey wakey, Inkyfingers!” he chirrups, flinging himself onto his sleeping brother. “The sun’s up and Dori’s grumblin’!”

 

“Dori’s always grumbling,” Ori mutters, curling further in on himself. “G’way No – Nori!” He sits bolt upright – Nori rolls towards the foot of the bed in surprise – and runs a hand through his hair. “When did you get here?”

 

“Dawn,” he reaches across to hug him. “Good to see you, brother-mine.”

 

“Morning,” is yawned into his shoulder in response. Ori’s still clingy like a much younger dwarfling, but Nori doesn’t see anything wrong with that. Better a squishy face pressed into his neck than an older brother wielding an iron poker.

 

“Ori!” Speak of the devil. Said oldest brother raps briskly on the doorframe. “Come on, you’ll be late. Wake up!”

 

“’M ‘wake.”

 

“Yes,” Dori frowns. Nori holds up his free hand in a universal _it’s not **my** fault! _ gesture. “I can see that. Now come on, up and washed, otherwise you’ll miss breakfast.”

 

He manages to disentangle himself from the octopus masquerading as his younger brother without too much trouble, and pads back to the kitchen to drink his lukewarm coffee and watch his siblings get ready for their respectable jobs.

 

“Are you joining us for dinner?” Dori asks, twisting his beard into its casing. In the background, the front door swings itself shut as Ori hurries out of it, scarf ends trailing behind him and a piece of toast shoved into his mouth.

 

“Probably,” Nori shrugs. He nudges the small bag of coins that’ve emigrated from the iron pot to the dining table in a hint. “You cooking?”

 

Dori points to the fire, where a larger pot is present amongst the embers. “Stay out of trouble,” he orders, grabbing his coat and heading out the door.

 

“Stay out of trouble,” Nori mimics (but only when the door has swung shut again), and he downs the rest of his coffee, before heading to the room he sometimes shares with Ori and the little wooden box under his bed.

 

Ten minutes later, his hair braided in a complicated series of plaits that even Dori would be proud of, he leaves the house, whistling to himself as he does so. Outside it may be threatening to rain, but the mountain is delightfully cool, and it’s a relief for once to have light that doesn’t make him acutely aware of his eyeballs.

 

It’s nice to be back in Erebor.

 

(It’s not _home_ ; Nori doesn’t have a _home_. Well, no, that’s not correct. He’s met elves and men that fall a little bit in love with everyone they meet, and that’s the closest thing he can think to liken it to in his head. Anywhere he eats, or sleeps, or feels comfortable – that becomes his home for the foreseeable future.  It’s not as if anyone has asked. It just feels a bit… wrong, every time Ori asks him why he’s not “home” for very long, or Dori asks when he’s “home” next.)

 

He shakes his head out of these dour thoughts – the beads at the end of his braids _thwack_ into his cheekbones – and walks faster to the market.

 

He picks up an apple along the way, chewing it loudly as he strides through the market place.

 

There are a lot more beggars than Nori remembers, small children in rags making a lunge for the shiny buckles in his shoes. The dwarf in front of him kicks out at one of them, and they started crying in that helpless way children do when no one is listening.

 

He doesn’t remember crying like that, and it’s not the reason he picks out this dwarf as his mark.

 

Nori stays a good few steps behind, whistling one of the songs he was singing last night in-between bites of his apple.

 

“Mister Fulnir,” the blacksmith’s voice takes on a whine as the mark passes. “Mister Fulnir, I was wondering… the small matter of your bill…”

 

“There’s nothing to discuss,” the mark – Fulnir – says coldly. “I don’t feel your workmanship warranted your price, and until you offer a fairer price, you’ll go without _any_ gold.” He tugs his cloak out of the blacksmith’s hands and carries on. Nori follows, an eyebrow raised.

 

He throws his apple core into an alleyway that they pass. They’re heading towards the richer area of the city. So Fulnir’s an arse, not a gambler. Or maybe both.

 

Whatever. Nori’s sure, either way, that he has _money_. For the moment, anyway.

 

Not after Nori’s done with him.

 

And then a noble steps in front of his vision, and all thoughts of taking Fulnir’s money flit out of Nori’s head like sparks from a mattock hitting rock.

 

 _That man has mithril in his hair_.

 

Even in the Iron Hills, Nori hasn’t come across many higher nobles. Not ones that don’t move with a guard bigger than Dori’s _house_ , anyway. So of course Nori changes tack and follows him. His hair is worth more than Dori’s annual wage!

 

Mithril-Man only has one guard, as well; a tough brawny dwarf, tall and mohawked. Easy enough to get around.

 

Oh sweet bountiful Mahal, Dori and Ori will eat well tonight.

 

He makes a flying leap for one of the city walls, landing on it without a sound. It’ll be easier to track them if they aren’t turning their backs every five minutes; the guard may be big, but he doesn’t seem _stupid_. Or not entirely, anyway.

 

The Guard is half a step behind Mithril-Man, watching his back. So he’ll have to be quick. A boot to the head, a tug on Mithril-Man’s beads… Nori can be past Dale by nightfall, and he can sell the beads and take the gold home and Dori can finally get himself a new tunic and Nori can stop the horrible guilty feeling that sneaks up every time he compares his clothes to his older brother’s.

 

They turn the corner, and Nori lunges.

 

His boot connects with the Guard, who lets out a strangled grunt and staggers back a few paces at the surprise weight of Nori’s foot. He reaches out a hand to tangle in Mithril-Man’s braids and pull them sharply, but Mithril-Man’s not as dumb as he looks.

 

“Gerroff!” Nori growls, kicking at the vicelike hand that fastens around his ankle. It squeezes the tendons and bones as though it’ll break them. Nori’s only known one dwarf that can do that, and Dori finds it pretty distasteful.

 

He doubles up on himself – thank Mahal for strong stomach muscles – and sinks his teeth into Mithril-Man’s hand until the noble shouts in pain and drops him. On his head.

 

Nori’s still blinking in pain and trying to get the world to stop spinning when a heavy boot lands in his stomach to pin him down, and two large hands fasten around his wrists to tie them together.

 

_Dori is going to kill me._


	2. Lawless Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Wherein Nori’s an accidental witness to a usurpation and a murder, and really wishes he had more luck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** for illegitimacy headcanons, slut-shaming, violence, character death, and mentions of harrassment and mental breakdowns.
> 
> [Developing a playlist for this [here](http://grooveshark.com/playlist/F+Heavy+Lies+The+Crown/) & many thanks to asssense for her help with bored!Nori headcanons ♥]

"Slacking a bit, ain't you?" Nori asks innocently, testing his cuffs. "I mean, it took you  _ages_."

 

"Nori, isn't it?" the lawman has a studiously blank face, even as he stresses the final syllable in his name. "A Son of Ri. Explains a lot."

 

He rolls his eyes and makes his cuff-testing a little more obvious in the hopes of distracting himself or the dwarf across the desk from the impending rant about  _the lessening morals of today_ and _the lack of male role models_.

                                                    

It doesn't work.

 

"I suppose you aren't exactly  _pretty_ enough to follow the family tradition."

 

"My ma's a tavern server," he sneers back. "Just because  _you_ spend your wages at whore houses, doesn't mean –" he inhales sharply as one of the guards behind him smacks him across the back of the head.

 

He doesn't mind the comments, really. A whore is still probably a more respected position than a thief and general rapscallion. It's just the  _other side_ , the fact that he's heard the comments that  _Dori_ gets and – well, they certainly don't highlight what an ugly specimen of a dwarf his older brother is.

 

It's the only comment he won't let stand, the comment that'll make Dori still, his eyes shutter up.

 

"It were only a couple of beads," he shrugs. " _And_ I didn't even get them, so..."

 

"So nothing." The lawman – Nori encounters enough of them to know what they’re _actually_ called, but then he forgets that he doesn’t give a toss either way – gestures to one of the guards. “I think a few weeks in the cells would do you good, don’t you?”

 

 _Yes actually_ , but he bites his tongue. The food in the cells is good – plain, but good. His stomach flips happily at the idea of three solid meals a day. Of course, he doesn’t tell _them_ that.

 

His contentment to be in a cell dies by the second day. They’ve changed the guard patterns since he was last here; his lockpicks are burning a hole in his skin as he waits.

 

“I’m _bored_!” He hollers after the guard who delivered his food. “At least give a feller something to _do_!”

 

“Be quiet,” the guard says coolly, like he has the past ten times.

 

“Mahal’s unused _bollocks_ , just gimme a rope to untwine or _something_!”

 

The guard sneers and comes back to the cell. He kicks the bars in a move that would probably make a lesser dwarf jump, but Nori hasn’t travelled to the four corners of Middle Earth without being able to withstand a pebble-brained idiot’s pathetic attempt at intimidation. “Do you think I’m shattered rock?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I’m not giving _anyone_ in _any_ of these cells a rope, least of all _you_!” the guard kicks again at the bars, closer to Nori’s hands now.

 

“Listen up, elf-shagger,” Nori pushes his face against said bars. “You lay a finger on me, and you’ll wake up with your spine broken because I’ve shoved your head up your _arse_ , you get?”

 

“Funny,” the guard laughs, giving Nori himself a shove. “Coming from a dwarf behind _bars_.”

 

Alright, so that plan won’t work. He sits back down on the cell’s bed – carved from rock, so he can’t even dismantle it to pass the time – and reaches up to slowly untangle the snarl his braids have got into.

 

He takes longer than he normally does, untying one and then dragging fingers through each strand in lieu of a comb. When all of his hair is free – he leaves his beard alone for the moment – Nori rearranges it so that he is shielded with a curtain of hair, and huffs to himself.

 

It gets no reaction from the guard.

 

_Yet._

Nori thinks back to those cats of the Eastern elves, and how he’d awoken one night in someone’s bed with a weight on his stomach. A warm, furry weight that made strange noises when he poked it in sleepy confusion.

 

He rolls his voice around his throat to mimic the _meow_ of the cat, and then tries it again; louder. His voice crescendos up until he’s yowling like an angry feline.

 

A boot thuds against the bars of his cell, “Quit that racket!”

 

He ignores his orders. The Eastern elf who’d taken Nori to her bed – that was a _good_ summer, good food, a comfy bed and company to boot – had stepped on her cat’s tail once, late at night after a successful heist. It had made the most spectacular noise, and he imitates it now, squeezing out strange noises from vocal chords that won’t thank him for it later.

 

"I won't hesitate to cut out your tongue," the harassed dwarf growls, his face going red. Nori's grin only widens.

 

Dori’s always said that he’s the most annoying dwarf this side of the Blue Mountains – _“And I only know that because I met a Broadbeam once, with dreadful hair who wouldn’t stop singing!”_ – and it’s nice that his brother’s faith in him is so secure.

 

He makes another cat noise – more of a _mraow!_ this time, rolling the ‘r’ around his tongue like the Iron Hills accent (huh, wonder if they’re related to cats, far back in their history) and descends into cackles when the guard stamps back to kick at his cell bars with a warning glint in his eye.

 

Nori finishes off with a noise that might _strictly speaking_ be more of a dog than a cat, and then resorts to silence. He slides off the bed to the floor, crossing his legs and holding his back straight. And then he stares in the direction of the other dwarf, but not directly at him.

 

The guard seems thankful of the quiet. He takes out a knife and starts whittling; before long he's humming to ease the silence.

 

And Nori keeps sitting, staring,  _quietly._

 

"Quit it," the guard grunts.

 

Nori grins.

 

"What're you staring at, huh?"

 

Nori stares.

 

"Hey!" the guard slams his heavy hands against the bars. "What the hell are you doing?"

 

"Practicing my telekenesis," and he ducks out the way with a final cackle when the half carved block of wood is launched at his head. "It worked!"

 

\---

 

Three sunrises in, and Nori awakes to the clash of steel upon steel.

 

He jolts awake, hand automatically flying out for one of his knives before he remembers – _cell, no knives, safe?_ – and he instead moves to his feet, bare toes curling on the cold floor.

 

It takes a moment for him to realise that the fighting is muffled by stone; so it’s upstairs.

 

_Upstairs?_

The guard – a different one to the one that Nori’s been doing his damnedest to send crazy, younger – looks as confused as he does. Silently, Nori raises his palms skywards. He gets a shrug in return.

 

He closes his eyes and tracks the sound as best as he can. There’s a woman’s scream, not in fear, but war; closely followed by a death rattle. What’s above him? Where’s he –

 

 _The court room_.

 

Well. That’s not good, is it? Fighting in court rooms tends to mean bad things. Tends to mean a sudden lack of money and scrimping and saving, or so he’s heard from various sources, which will make Nori’s life a lot harder.

 

Maybe it’s just the way nobles have learnt to deal with things, though. Thorin Oakenarse gets pissed off and runs someone through and that’s that. Perhaps it’s not a civil war _at all_!

 

This thought is chased away when the door to the row of cells is forced open.

 

“What – what’s going on?” the guard stammers, jumping to his feet, and Nori swallows because the boy – well, old enough to guard, obviously, but he still seems damn _young_ – reminds him ever so slightly of Ori, and Ori doesn’t belong here.

 

(It’s fine to think of Dori, because Dori would take one look at his cell and tidy it from top to bottom, and then ease open the bars with his singleminded tutting. But Ori used to have nightmares about the crack in their wall, sometimes still gets lost in the marketplace and gets his scarf trapped in doors. _He doesn’t belong here_ and Nori won’t bring him in.)

 

He doesn’t catch what the intruder says, something harsh and guttural with an accent that Nori can’t place, but is adamantly not Ereborean, but not even Nori’s wandering train of thought distracts him from the shine of a blade.

 

His eyes zero in on it even as his mind lags behind – _shiny, sharp_ , magpie sense.

 

The guard sobs out in pain as the blade buries itself in his stomach.

 

 _Civil war then_ , Nori’s brain supplies. He takes a step back for self-preservation as the intruder – _mercenary, definitely hired –_ steps further into the cell, pressing down on the guard’s chest with a foot and retrieving their sword.

 

Nori stares blankly back at her, even as there’s another scream from upstairs; a kid’s scream. He doesn’t blink; neither does the sell-sword.

 

They stare at each other.

 

“What did you see?” she asks, and her voice sounds a little like a Blue Mountain accent.

 

“Nothing,” he says in response, feeling spectacularly underdressed in nothing but his breeches. “Only, if you’re going to be runnin’ around, doin’ all these lawless things…” Nori gestures to the bars.

 

The mercenary throws back her head and laughs, “More than my job’s worth, boyo.” And she leaves, and Nori is all alone with a dead kid the only guard against him.

 

He huffs out a breath – shakier than he’d like it to be – and settles back on his bed, pulling his shirt over his head. The last time he was here, Dori had sewn up the tear he’d got when he climbed out of a dwarrowdam’s window after her husband got home early. He’d tutted all the while, and made comments about how _I shouldn’t be encouraging your delinquent lifestyle_ , but the stitching had been neat and even, and he’d looked proud when he was done.

 

Nori runs his fingers over the soft embroidery thread and tries not to think about what’s just happened.

 

If they were more important, if they weren’t Sons of Ri, if they had titles or money, anything more than _some bastard line of Durin if the legends are true_ (their mother’s of Ri as well, for all they know it _might_ be); he’d be convincing his brothers to take an extended holiday right now, out of Longbeard territory and somewhere safe.

 

Somewhere warm.

 

As it is, they’re pretty much as safe as they’ll ever be; being fatherless whoresons might impact their daily life, but it makes them completely irrelevant to the grander scheme of things.

 

Still, Nori thinks he won’t stay long in Erebor. Wait until the new king’s settled down, and the purses loosen again. Pity, really, that he has no taste for assassination, he could have made a killing – heh – as a sell-sword.

 

No, Nori _can_ kill – and has – but it’s not his favourite thing. He likes knives, but he likes how they shine and glitter, what they promise and what they mean. Murder’s… messy.

 

He fumbles in the hemlines of his trousers for his picks. He’ll poke his head in at the house and say bye to the brothers, and then he’ll head out – the Blue Mountains are beautiful this time of year, even if the money’s not great.

 

Nori’s hands still before he’s worked even the first pick out, thief-sense warning him that footsteps are coming.

 

_Who in their right mind overthrows a king and then goes “well, better go check those commoners in the cells”?_

“-st he’s stopped screaming?” So at least two of them – no, wait, three, because they’re dragging something, talking about someone. He fights back his instinct to look, and goes back to the bed. He rolls onto his side and watches through his mess of loose hair.

 

“Don’t see why we couldn’t just run him through. Did that with the other, didn’t we?” the door crashes open and the voices get louder.

 

“Oh, of _course_ they make a mess, leave us to clean it up.” They must have found the body. He can’t see, they aren’t in his peripheral. “Is there anyone in here?”

 

Not ideal. Nori was hoping not to draw attention to himself. “Jus’ me,” he thickens his accent, in case. “I didn’t see nothin’, I swear!”

 

The two chuckle to themselves, one of them comes to have a closer look at him. Nori tucks one of his eyebrow braids behind his ear and looks up at them quizzically. “Am I free to go?”

 

Satisfied that he’s no one important, they turn back to the matter at hand. There’s a smallish dwarf hanging between the two of them: smart clothes, dark hair, little bit bloody. Nori’s seen that expression on comrades before, the dwarf is barely conscious and not aware of his surroundings, retreating back into his head to try and save himself.

 

They open the cell opposite Nori’s and dump him in the doorway. The dwarf slumps to the floor in a heap, but they’re not too bothered.

 

“Not quite what you’re used to, princeling?” one of them croons in a sickly sweet voice. The – prince? flinches, but says nothing. “I’m sure someone’ll feed you eventually. Or maybe they’ll forget.”

 

 _Better not sodding forget_ , Nori bites back. _I want to eat too, I’m barely anything to do with Durins_.

 

They bolt the door again, and make their way to the exit, and it’s only when the footsteps have slowed that the heap on the floor moves. Blank brown eyes peek out from under a tangled mess of similarly coloured hair, and he pulls himself across the floor to hide behind the bed. Nori can barely see anything of him, but his brain’s sliding pieces together again.

 

“Oh come on!” the idiot part of his mind that never knows when to stop talking shouts. “He’s a _kid_ , you’ve got to be kidding me – you’re leaving him _here?_ ”

 

The only answer he gets is the door slamming shut.


	3. New Regime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Wherein it’s really none of Nori’s business, honestly, but he ends up plotting an escape anyway._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** for slut-shaming, rape threats to a minor, more illegitimacy headcanons  & sort of child/young person abuse.

It is really _really_ none of Nori’s business.

 

Absolutely none at all.

 

The prince is wearing rich clothes in nice colours; well-made and decorated. They could probably feed Dori and Ori for the best part of a year, and there's still a mithril clasp clinging to a strand of his hair.

 

Sloppy, really. If Nori was staging a coup – he's only thought about it once or twice, when Lord Nain brought in amputation as a thief's punishment, or when a Durin procession blocked the entrance to the inn he was trying to get to – he would have searched the kid for all his money first, not moved him straight into a cell. There's money to be made after all.

 

Damn nobles, they don’t know what they're _doing_.

 

The kid’s not been left alone since they dragged him in; there’s always someone poking at him, jeering and laughing. This is only pissing Nori off because he wants the quiet, he’s not annoyed at the idea they’re _attacking and humiliating a kid_. Kids are shits. Youth doesn’t mean innocence.

 

(But – that traitorous part of his brain says, the small bit that’s rational and reasonable and worries about how his brothers sleep and if they’re alright, _that_ part – what if it were Ori? They look about the same age. What if it was _Ori_ here, curled up in a ball and possibly the only one of them left?)

 

And, right on cue, the boy in the other cell makes a choked, scared noise.

 

Nori tunes back in to the conversation he’s been ignoring for most of the day.

 

“…tie him to the front of the throne,” one of the usurpers suggests, leaning against the bars. “Remind everyone who’s in charge now.”

 

“Maybe it runs in the family…” the other – there are two of them, coin purses tucked to the insides of their coats and knives hooked in secret places in their inner legs (bad move, always a bad move _does no one study anatomy anymore?_ ) “A replacement whore of Durin, like the bitch who whelped him.”

 

The curled up ball on the floor tenses, but Nori can’t tell if it’s out of fear or anger.

 

The first taps his knuckles on the cell bars with a chuckle. “Would you like that? Spread your legs for anyone who looks interested?”

 

“He’s a _kid_ ,” Nori remarks in disgust, sitting cross-legged on his bed. “Didn’t realise your tastes ran to _children._ Welcome to the new regime, huh?”

 

Both men turn to look at him, “Who the fuck are you?”

 

“Just your general, law-abiding citizen,” he snickers, the bars belying his words. “Who doesn’t _really_ like it when dwarves threaten to fuck kids? Leaves a bad taste in my mouth, y’know. Little siblings, street rats…”

 

“You shut your mouth!” The second is more outraged than the first at the slander, but they’ve stepped away from the prince’s cell.

 

_(Nori, why the bloody hell are you doing this?)_

Nori shrugs, “I call them like I see them,” and he skips backwards, until there’s no way they can even think to reach him without opening the cell.

 

The first is shouting for the guard, wanting the keys to “teach this son of a whore a lesson”, but the guard on today is slow and sleepy and doesn’t react before Nori’s mouthing off again.

 

“ _Oh_ you know my mother?” he chirrups happily. The bundle in the corner of the other cell stirs slightly; he catches sight of wary brown eyes peering out from under a finely clad arm before the prince buries himself back in again. “Are you another sibling? Or perhaps a client?”

 

The second gives a loud roar of outrage and offence and launches himself at the bars. Nori just grins wider, and then affects a shocked look. “Or _maybe_ you’re my Da! I’ve always _wanted_ to meet me Da, apparently he was a bit…” he wrinkles his nose and holds up his little finger.

 

“If you open the cell,” the guard says in his slow, steady voice. “Then he’ll probably get out. ‘M not authorised to, anyway.”

 

They look about ready to argue, but Nori fixes them with one of his colder smiles – and strangely, they decide to leave.

 

“Bloody idiot,” the guard grunts, but he doesn’t go to reprimand Nori.

 

And so he’s left alone with the kid, save the guard, who seems perfectly willing to be deaf and dumb… in both senses of the word.

 

First step is to give him some space. Nori’s seen broken dwarves before, and he knows they need _space_. Annoyingly, it’s more important than talking to the prince right now. Not that he looks like he’d be good conversation, anyway.

 

He has no way to measure time other than the beats of his heart, and counting them gets boring pretty quickly. So he has no idea how long it is before the prince starts to move, dragging himself into the tiny space between his bed and the cell wall and huddling up as if that’ll defend him. The last time he hid there, they dragged him out with loud mocking laughs.

 

Nori, safely ensconced on his own bed, closes his eyes and lets sleep take him.

 

It’s a fairly decent nap.

 

He always sleeps well in prison cells.

 

Mostly because there’s a much less chance of getting stabbed in one, since apparently that’s what guards are for.

 

When he wakes, the jail is still quiet; a nice and refreshing change from the hustle and bustle of the past few days. The guard in the corner is humming to himself as he tats lace, smoothing thick fingers over the gentle material – he seems alright at it. Dori would approve.

 

On first glance, the kid doesn’t appear to have moved, but when Nori adjusts to the dusky half-light of the cells he sees a pair of dark eyes watching him, over the top of the stone bed.

 

 _//All well?//_ Nori signs hesitantly, raising his eyebrows to switch the sign from a statement to a question. If he was speaking, he could clarify what he meant – he _knows_ that the prince won’t be alright, he’s seen half his family die _at least_ , but… well, alright, he doesn’t know.

 

If he hadn’t been watching the prince so closely, he’d have missed the slight incline of his head. He only catches it because he sees his nose – too small and finely boned, the boy isn’t exactly a _looker_ – brush against the stone.

 

 _//Name?//_ but he gets no response. He’s not entirely surprised, actually. It requires moving, and the prince has his arms wrapped tightly around his body as though his insides will fall out if he moves.

 

(Then again, they _might_. Nori doesn’t know what injuries he has, after all. It would completely defeat the point of locking the prince in a cell if he died of a gut wound, but then these guys aren’t exactly the _best_ usurpers he’s ever seen.)

 

He fingerspells out his name and catches the look of shock and almost-disgust that dims the prince’s eyes before they fade into blankness again.

 

Of course, he won’t have come across a Child of Ri before. They’re hidden and brushed under the carpet; not fit for polite conversation. Some say they’re unlucky, cursed, begotten from quick tumbles rather than love-filled marriages. Nori reckons that’s complete horse shite, but then, no one asks him.

 

They’re supposed to be “easy”, too.

 

Whoever first thought _that_ up had clearly never tried to get into Dori’s bed.

 

 _“There’d be a lot more thrice-cursed Children of Ri around if we were,”_ his mam used to say, Ori clinging to her thin hip and trying to reach for the hair that she kept braided out of reach, and then wailing when he couldn’t.

 

He blinks the memory out of his head. The kid’s still watching him, or perhaps he’s zoned out with Nori as his focus point.

 

 _//Not cursed//_ he signs, wondering how long the pause was. Well, except for when he tries to rob mithril hairclips, apparently, but he’s going to blame that on… the weather. Anything, other than the fact he made a rookie error and is now paying for it in some shitty cell.

 

The prince is still watching him.

 

Then again, he’s got a choice of iron bars, stone walls, or a guard that’s picking his nose with his knife.

 

Nori would watch him too.

 

_//Hurt?//_

A slow, cautious nod in response: it’s as if Nori’s shouting in a busy market place, the prince takes seconds too long to respond. Like it’s not going in properly, he’s not hearing it right; he has to register it first.

 

_//Where?//_

No response. The prince seems unable to talk – Nori hopes they haven’t cut out his tongue, that’s always a bitch to heal. He tries to remember if he’s heard anything about either of the princes being _slow_ , but… well, he’s never been that interested in the Durins, to be honest. He couldn’t even pick them out on the street.

 

(Maybe they’re all really ugly!)

 

He grins to himself as the thought crosses his mind. The faintest look of confusion passes the prince’s face, and Nori’s glad that iglishmek is too stilted to convey what he’s thinking, because that could be awkward.

 

Probably a touchy spot.

 

The ugliness of the _legitimate_ Line of Durin – ha! Nori doesn’t normally revel in his older brother’s good looks (bloody unfair for a single dwarf to be _that_ pretty, especially as Dori isn’t _using_ it), but he feels particularly smug about it at the precise moment in time.

 

Nori’s grin dies like a pickpocket on bad rock when he looks back at the prince, who’s curled in on himself again, hiding his face in the luxurious dark blue fabric of his sleeves. Stuck in a prison with only a Son of Ri who’s been smiling to himself like he was drunk on elfwine can’t exactly be easy. He probably thinks Nori’s mad, and he’s not entirely wrong.

 

He’s really quite small – not in height, he’s not seen the kid standing up, but in build, all sharp angles as though _he’s_ the one who’s struggled to have enough food all his life, not Nori – and he looks smaller huddled up in a ball, and something in Nori’s chest _aches_ at that. It’s not his heart, you don’t survive long in the underbelly of Middle Earth with something like _that_. Dori always calls it his conscience.

 

Nori doesn’t have one of those either, but he doesn’t tell Dori that, because his brother looks sad enough most of the time.

 

He flickers his fingers until he catches the prince’s eye. _//Get out. Yes?//_

The other’s eyes light up, and he nods so frantically it alerts the third person in the room, “I hope you’re not _talking_ over there.” The guard – a different one from the one who’d let Nori get away with winding up the freemen earlier, they must have swapped over when he was asleep – growls, stomping over to stand in the gap between the two cells.

 

“Hardly,” Nori snorts, lying back on his bed. “That one’s got nowt between his ears anyway, you can tell that. Are _all_ nobles as inbred as the stories say?”

 

A strange look passes the guard’s face, a conflict between wanting to backhand Nori for speaking ill of his betters (read: the entirety of freenamed Erebor) and wanting to sneer. The sneer wins out, “This one’s not a noble, so I wouldn’t know,” and he kicks the foot of the prince’s cell bars.

 

The kid makes a terrified squeak and doubles in on himself.

 

There is a knife in Nori’s boot, built into the sole so it wouldn’t be found on a cursory search, even if the search was slightly more high-tech than he thought it would be (his target must have been richer than he realised). There is a knife in Nori’s boot, a rondel that he only pulls out when he means to do some serious damage, and all of a sudden he _aches_ to use it.

 

 _Soon_ , he tells himself, _soon_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fought me all the way through, so I'm sorry for the lateness. It was needed, but not loved.


	4. Anything Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Wherein, for the millionth time, Nori breaks out of prison. Unlike the other ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine times, he has a stowaway._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** for violence and minor character death.

He purposefully doesn’t tell the princeling about any of his ideas on escaping. It’s a habit, more than anything, since breaking out in Ered Luin and almost losing a _hand_ because some orcshagging idiot dwarf had turned coat on him; but it comes in handy here. If anything goes wrong, the kid won’t get into too much trouble for it. Won’t rat him out, anyway.

 

Nori has glimmer powder sewn into the hem of his coat. He’d asked Dori to do it, to every jacket and shirt and pair of breeches he owns, and his older brother had tutted in disapproval – but spent three days and nights with his needle and thread.

 

When Nori had protested – _“You didn’t need to take that long, you didn’t have to be that detailed!”_ – his brother had fixed him with one of his potent looks and said _“No brother of mine will walk around with shoddily stitched clothing_.” And that was that.

 

His rondel is in one boot, his lockpick in the other. Strictly speaking, he prefers _more_ weapons when he’s having a breakout, but the rondel is the only one that’s survived the overkill search he was subjected to all those days ago.

 

_//scream when told//_ he tells the huddled ball of a prince, and hopes he’s watching.

 

He’ll take the brat to Dori’s, get his brother’s advice (Dori’s good with young things), have some food, and then hotfoot it out of Erebor, with or without the royal tag-along.

 

He waits for the right guard, huddled in a corner of his cell with one hand curled around his picks and the other ready to propel him forward, his rondel jammed into his belt. If he’s lucky, he won’t have to use the glimmer powder.

 

It’s bleeding into the evening – judging by the meal that’s brought to them and that he ignores – when the timing is right.

 

It’s the guard from before, the one who’d stalled and stopped him from being attacked. He’s got hair like Nori’s – and Nori spends so long changing the style of his hair when he’s in the cells for this particular reason – and he won’t be missed, not immediately. Nori is weaving a story inside his head, a cover that will get them to the undercity without anyone realising.

 

He flickers his fingers at the prince, who jerks out of the stupor he spends most of his days in –

 

_//scream//_

 

– and the kid does.

 

It’s loud, and highpitched, and shrill, and hysterical, and Nori is _impressed_. His breathing rattles in his chest when he inhales sharply to scream again, and it does precisely as it’s supposed to; the guard is swearing, fiddling with the keys on his belt and hurrying over to the prince.

 

Meanwhile, the other side of the room, Nori creeps to the bars with his pick in hand. It would take an ordinary dwarf longer to pick this one, but Nori’s not an ordinary dwarf (and that’s not just bragging, Nori’s always been able to pull his shoulders and elbows out of their joints for moments before pushing them back in), and it barely takes him an instant.

 

“What do you _want_?” the guard roars at the still shrieking prince. “What’s _wrong_?”

 

Pitiful last words, really, but it can’t be helped.

 

He doesn’t even notice Nori behind him. The rondel pushes into the hard surface of the guard’s skull unforgivingly. It hits something soft – Nori pulls out, changes angle, pushes in again. The prince is still screaming.

 

“Right,” he says, when the body in front of him has stopped struggling. “That’s that then.”

 

His undershirt and breeches are covered in blood, and he shucks them immediately, before reaching to strip the guard.

 

“That’s enough of that,” he presses a bloody hand over the kid’s mouth. “Make yourself useful and rip your bedding f’me. Make it look like there’s been a fight, alright?”

 

Eyes bulging over Nori’s hand, he nods. When Nori moves his hand, he leaves smears of blood all along the boy’s cheek.

 

He leaves the kid to it, pulling on the guard uniform. It’s almost the same size – slightly too small in the groin, the sleeves fall over his hands. But there are black leather gloves, and they’re _fantastic_. He loves stripping guardsmen of their clothes. The gloves are so pretty.

 

It’s not so much fun to put the guardsman into _his_ clothes, but every adventure has sacrifices.

 

“We all done?” He winds his hair around his fist and knots it up, thankful that the red colour won’t show blood. “Good lad. Now curl up into a ball and don’t move.” The kid’s good at it, he’s been doing it the past Mahal-damned-knows-how-long anyway.

 

The kid squeaks in surprise as Nori sweeps him up in the guard’s cloak and throws it over his shoulder in a makeshift bag. Oh, yeah. Should probably have warned him.

 

Bony fingers cling to his guard uniform through the material as he starts to walk, but Nori can’t tell if it’s for physical or mental safety.

 

Strangely, breaking out of jail in the middle of a regime change is _easy_ – everyone’s too suspicious to talk, and barely anyone knows each other anyway. Combine that with the confident way Nori walks out of the main hall, he’ll be surprised if anyone knows they’re gone before the next guard change.

 

And hopefully they’ll look at each other first, considering the fact that he’s “dead” and the kid’s gone.

 

“I’m not letting you out,” he mutters without moving his lips. “Not yet. Pinch me if you can’t breathe.”

 

A sharp finger pokes at the back of his neck in acknowledgement, but it’s not a pinch, so Nori keeps striding forward.

 

The weight of a body on his back is strange, and difficult to manage, but not impossible. He’s not inherited Dori’s strength, but he’s not a weakling, and he’s absolutely, definitely _not_ scrawny. The kid, he’s scrawny. Nori is just… differently muscled.

 

It isn’t yet dark enough for Nori and the kid to make the trek across Erebor to the undercity – or “Caverns”, as the dwarf who previously wore Nori’s clothes would say. Whilst there’s no true light that comes through into Erebor, minus the misted crystal windows that some of the higher districts get, they still mimic the ebb and flow of the sun.

 

Or, even, it’s ingrained into them the idea of day and night (the Men of Dale don’t tend to appreciate dwarven traders walking into their city past midnight, something to do with “sleeping”), so Nori’s _actually_ waiting for the populace to leave the streets.

 

His people walk the streets at night, and they won’t question a guard who walks like a nightcrawler joining them.

 

So, instead, he heads to a thief’s cave – thankfully empty, but he’d chase off anyone who was in it, anyway, Nori’s got a _reputation_ – and beds down there, shoving the kid into the furthest corner of the cave.

 

“Keep hidden as best you can,” he warns. “That honour amongst thieves bullshit you nobs spout’s a lie.”

 

The prince curls in on himself, pulling the cloak around him until pretty much all Nori can see is those blank brown eyes. The blood’s still smeared across his face; dry now. Nori’s inner-Dori itches to wipe it off.

 

“You hurt?” he asks gruffly instead, picking at a loose thread in his newly acquired black leather gloves. “’Cause it’ll be a while before I can take you anywhere. Rather you not drop dead on me.”

 

The kid looks at him for several long moments, before raising a cloak covered hand and tapping his chest, and then his stomach. As an afterthought, he pushes up the sleeves of his undershirt and presents two rubbed-raw wrists to Nori.

 

Nori takes the offered wrists and inspects them with a knowledgeable eye. “Got some salve for them at home. Anything broken?”

 

A shrug. The boy wrestles his wrists out of Nori’s grasp as soon as it’s possible.

 

“Well, I’m guessing your belly’s bruised, else you’d be dead,” he continues on, aware that the kid’s going to show him as little as possible. “Ribs though, they might be cracked.”

 

The prince’s response is to curl up and hide his head, until all he resembles is a small ball of cloth.

 

Nori sighs and leans back against one of the rough walls of the cave. “Bloody hell, you’re going to have to trust me at some point, y’know? Does it help that I don’t got a sodding clue _who_ you are? The only royals I know are Thorin Oakenarse and that insufferable Dain from the Iron Hills.”

 

His eyes are just visible over the top of those scrawny knees, and they are narrowed now, as they look at Nori.

 

“Sorry,” he says eventually, when it becomes clear that he’s pissed the kid off. “Forgot who I were speaking to.”

 

The prince makes a grunt in the back of his throat – so he’s still capable of making _some_ sounds, then.

 

They sit in silence for a while, Nori happy to watch the hustle and bustle of dwarves that have no idea they’re being spied upon. He’ll have to move eventually, but there’s a nice difference between sitting quietly when free, as opposed to sitting quietly in a cell.

 

He hopes to be home before evening meal.

 

“I have a little brother, about your age,” and it wasn’t part of the plan to _tell_ the prince about where they were going, but Nori’s weighing up various options right now. “He’s a scribe, in the Libraries. Still doing his apprenticeship, but he’s almost done. You must have finished yours by now?” Truth be told, he doesn’t know the age of any of the royal family – well, no, he _thinks_ Oakenarse is about Dori’s age.

 

The prince shakes his head.

 

“Well, nearly there? Don’t know how old you are,” Nori watches in the hope the prince’ll give him an answer, but the boy’s not got enough presence of mind to do that yet. “Are you going to make me guess? Don’t know if my numbers run high enough.”

 

Something not unlike a smile flickers across what Nori can see of his face.

 

He starts counting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AURGH I SWEAR TO GOD THAT EVERY CHARACTER IS FIGHTING ME RIGHT NOW. Sorry this one's so short. I, however, make no apologies for my weapons kink.


	5. A Martyr (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Wherein Dori is unimpressed. But when is he not?_

“Where have you _been_?” Nori doesn’t even make it inside before he’s ducking Dori’s furious glare and open-handed slaps. “We were worried _sick_ , do you have any idea what’s been –” His older brother catches sight of Nori’s baggage and turns white, although from fury or horror is unclear. “You’ve brought _stolen goods_ into our house?” Dori hisses, closing the door as calmly as he can with hands that itch to ball into fists.

 

“Dor-”

 

“A _week_ , without a word, _‘I’ll be home for dinner, Dori’_ and an _empty seat_ and meanwhile Erebor is in _turmoil_ and the royal family is _dead_ and-”

 

Nori’s burden gives a barely there whimper and he can feel him shaking through the cloak and fine leather uniform.

 

He’d thought Dori had gone white before, now he’s the same ashen silver as his hair.

 

Nothing for it: carefully, Nori puts the cloak on the floor and opens up his makeshift bag. The kid seems to have retreated into the same headspace he had in the cell, all curled up and empty. He’s so tiny and blood-stained. What do the royals _feed_ him?

 

“What have you done?” Dori whispers, horrorstruck. “Nori, you’ve stolen a _child_.”

 

“You always assume the worst of me, don’t you?”

 

“Well, if you stopped ending up in a _cell_ every few weeks, maybe I’d–”

 

“Stop it, you’re upsetting him!” Ori shouts over the top of them, gesturing to the kid with one mitten clad hand – Dori’s clearly run out of money for firewood again.

 

The kid hasn’t moved from his spot on the floor, but his hands are clenched into fists and his arms are sheltering his head as he crouches. He’s rocking slightly, as if to console himself, and he may be wearing clothes more expensive than anything in the room, but right now he’s the most pitiful thing in the house.

 

Dori lets out all his breath with a _whoosh_.

 

“It’s alright, sweetheart,” he murmurs, giving Nori a look that says _this is all your fault_ and _we’re not finished yet_ and _I swear to Mahal I’m weaving your hair into patches for my breeches_. “It’s ok, you’re safe now, no one’s –”

 

The kid gathers himself up and, with a strangled whimper, flings himself into Dori’s arms. Nori’s brother takes a step back in surprise – the kid might be scrawny, but he’s still a dwarf, he’s not _light_ , and Dori’s been caught completely unawares – but he’s already pulling him close and crooning to him, petting his tangled mess of brown hair. He reaches behind himself for one of the battered armchairs and sinks into it slowly, taking the boy with him.

 

Over the top of the kid’s trembling figure, his eyes say _explain now_.

 

“I…” Nori casts around for an escape route. Ori’s standing in the way of the front door; there’s none to be found. “Well.”

 

“I’m waiting, brother-mine,” Dori says in a too-sweet voice. The prince is making shuddering noises; he is crying into Dori’s shoulder. Dori shushes and rocks him like he used to with Nori and Ori.

 

“They’d locked him up, I’m not completely heartless!” he protests from the kitchen. “You’d do the same, Dor, think of –”

 

“I wouldn’t have got myself in jail in the first place.”

 

“Well, considering they were talking about making him the court whore, it’s a good thing I _did_ , isn’t it?”

 

Of all the ways to tell Dori that he’s currently consoling a member of the deposed royal family, that was probably not one of the better options. Nori watches his elder brother’s face cycle through expressions – the flash of empathy (he’s been told, after all, that he should just earn their bread by lying on his back more times than Nori’s stolen silver spoons), the rage at how _young_ the kid is, the surge of protectiveness, and finally, finally, realisation.

 

“Well,” Dori sags backwards in the armchair, eyes wide with shock. “You _do_ get yourself into some scrapes, don’t you?”

 

“I’ll make you some tea,” he stalls – or, rather, attempts to; there’s no tinder in the house.

 

“Never _mind_ the tea!” Dori flushes as Nori’s jaw drops. “I – we need to get him cleaned up. Both of you, actually, I doubt you bathed in jail.” He won’t put it into words – _especially_ not in front of the prince – but his eyes are pleading. Either Nori nicks the fire wood, or he sells some of his new ill-gotten gains: the second seems far more… profitable.

 

“I’ll go and get changed then,” he heaves out a sigh. He shucks the comfy, warm leathers and replaces them with normal woollen clothing: at least the age of them means they aren’t itchy, and he gathers up all his new uniform in a sack.

 

The prince’s breathing has changed by the time he re-enters; he appears to have fallen asleep on Dori’s shoulder.

 

“Have you eaten?” he asks as he pulls on his spare boots (his others, of course, are on the dead guard still hopefully in the cell.) His older brother strokes the curve of his moustache with his index and middle fingers: his age-old tic when he wishes to evade a question. “Right then.”

 

Padrir, on Citrine Street, never bats an eyelid when a customer comes in wanting to sell a guardsman uniform, but that doesn’t mean he makes it _easy_ for his sellers.

 

“What, with the new lot in charge, there are a lot of layoffs,” he explains to Nori, blinking owlishly behind thick-rimmed glasses. “Guardsman kits are ten a penny right now.”

 

“Not cell guards,” Nori says, hoisting the bag up a little further in his arms. “And not this quality either; I think this is practically _new_. Worth at least fifteen silvers, surely?” He empties it out on the counter and Padrir picks up one of the sleeves of the tunic. Nori’s not even lying; it’s wonderfully made.

 

“Not got a full set though, have you?” the shopkeep says after a careful inspection. “No boots, or gloves. I can give you seven for the breeches and the tunic, but…” he sucks in a breath through his teeth and shakes his head. “Anyone that wants the kit’s going to have to find boots and gloves, and that’ll cost them a pretty penny.”

 

“Nine.”

 

“Eight.”

 

“Eight and three?” Nori’s not the _best_ at haggling, he prefers to just nip around the back and help himself to the five finger discount, but he’s slightly better at fencing. “Look at the stitching, that won’t break in a summer.”

 

“Eight, and that’s my final offer.”

 

He growls under his breath, staring thoughtfully at the red and black uniform. Eight silvers would keep Dori and Ori going for two weeks at best, but they need kindling and Nori’s not sure how long he’s staying. He has stuff to fence, but he’s not sure of the exchange rate in Erebor at the moment.

 

With a sigh, he peels off his newly-acquired favourite item, “How much with the gloves?” He can’t give up the boots, because the ones he’s wearing now have big enough holes to fit his fists through.

 

“Twelve?” Padrir’s eyes light up; save for the loose thread that Nori’s been worrying, they’re in perfect condition.

 

“Fourteen,” he takes advantage of the momentary lapse in judgement that Padrir had shown him. Never show a cutpurse and general thief that you want something.

 

“Twelve and eight?”

 

The tables have turned ever so slightly now, Nori feels so much more in control. “Thirteen and five.”

 

“Thirteen, and that’s my final offer.”

 

He doesn’t push it, even as he mourns the loss of those lovely gloves. It’ll be winter soon, and Dori and Ori will be cold. And if they’re cold, they’ll get ill, and then they’ll whine at Nori and he can really do without Ori looking all helpless and Dori making himself into a martyr. Thirteen will get them plenty of wood and tinder; it’ll feed them for a bit.

 

It means that Nori can have a _bath_ , even if his older brother will ban him from first water on account of the prince.

 

“Knock knock,” he shouts as he kicks the door open, arms full of firewood. Dori makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat, his hand curling around the top of the armchair in a white-knuckled fist for just a second. The kid, still in the armchair, squeaks and hides under the blanket Dori’s got for him.

 

His brother takes the wood with a hissed, “You’re determined to drive me to an early grave, aren’t you?”

 

“Couldn’t get the door,” Nori smiles back at him sweetly. “Why would I want to do that? I’d have to stay here and make sure the brat ate his vegetables.”

 

Said brat looks up from where he’s perched on their coffee table, blinks twice and then returns to the book he’s holding. He’s watching the prince over the top of it: the pages aren’t turning half as fast as they normally do when Ori reads.

 

Dori ‘hmms’ to himself, already stoking up a fire. He reaches out a hand to rest on the pile of blankets that is their errant houseguest, rubbing in a soothing motion at something that might be his knee. He doesn’t say anything, mulling things over as he starts boiling water and gesturing for Nori to drag out their tin bath.

 

It takes an age to boil enough water to fill it, not quite as long as it used to when Nori was an impatient dwarfling, and it seems to take almost as long to coax the prince out of his balled huddle and clothing.

 

He’s thin, but not skinny – and there is a clear delineation in Nori’s head, because _thin_ is what he was always called as a dwarfling, it’s something you’re born into; skinny is when the Harad deal went so wrong he survived on nothing but water and a few leaves he weren’t sure were edible for a month – and heavily bruised. The kid draws his arms back along his stomach as soon as his tunic is off, but Dori makes soothing noises in the back of his throat as he inspects the worst of the damage.

 

“We need some witch-hazel for the bruising,” he says to Ori, gentle touches along the kid’s swollen and blue-marred stomach. “Arms up, love, let me see your ribs.”

 

The kid hesitates, but slowly lifts his arms from their hunched-over defensive position, and Dori’s hands track up higher. They’ll be cold, they always are, but when the kid makes a cut-off sound, it’s not because of the temperature of Dori’s hands.

 

“Cracked ribs,” Dori sighs to himself. “We’ve got bandages. Come on then, hop in.” He keeps talking even when the prince’s in the tub, grounding him and keeping him present.

 

From his position at the door – guard, but not on guard – Nori watches the colour seep back into the kid’s face, watches him turn from stone to flesh, as his brother chatters about nothing and then reaches up to help him wash his hair.

 

It just reminds Nori that the tips of his own hair are dried dark with blood, and he itches to plunge into that water and drag his hands through until it’s clean again.

 

But no, he must _wait_.

 

Dori sends the prince and Kili off into Ori’s bedroom and doesn’t stop talking when Nori gets into the bath himself. “What do you plan to do with him?”

 

“I don’t know,” Nori admits, eyes closed as he works water and soap through the stubborn blood clinging to his hair. “I just – I knew he needed to be out.”

 

“Makes you wonder why they didn’t just kill him,” Dori clicks his tongue, and the next thing Nori knows there’s an extra pair of hands on his hair, scrubbing at the ends with no sympathy. “That’s what I would have done: a rat-catcher doesn’t leave kittens just because they’re young, after all.”

 

“Mmm,” Nori shakes his head, Dori pulls his hair. “Would make him a martyr. He’s a kid – well, seventy seven, still a kid.”

 

“You asked him?” There’s a note of surprise in Dori’s voice, and he can’t tell whether it’s because Nori actually thought to ask or because the kid actually responded.

 

“We hid for three hours in a thief cavern, I had to do _something_ ,” he takes a deep breath and submerges his head fully under the water. He holds it there until his lungs start to ache, and then rises from his awkward position, half drenching Dori as he does so.

 

His brother _tsks_ and slaps his wet shoulder.

 

“I numbered off, and he shook his head until I got the right one. So that’s all I know; he’s a prince, and he’s seventy seven.”

 

“I put him in your bed,” Ori’s voice makes him jump. “Didn’t know what else to do. What _are_ we going to do, anyway? We’re hiding one of the usurped heirs to the throne in my bedroom.”

 

Dori groans to himself quietly and sits back on his haunches, thick fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

 

Nori’s just a little bit perturbed they’re having this conversation whilst he’s in the bath. “Any suggestions?” he heaves out a sigh and stands up, sending a small tidal wave of water in the direction of his elder brother again. “Because I was just going to leave him with you.”

 

With a yelp, Nori falls over the side of the iron tub, aided by the punch Dori aims at his abdomen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realise this is more thinking and talking and Dori-cuddles than the other chapters have been, but Kili broke out of my plot sculpture and demanded that he got hugs, so...


	6. Dead Weight (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Wherein tears are shed, plans are made, and a prince finds his voice._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** for mentioned past abuse.

Dori’s bed is uncomfortable.

 

No, that’s a lie. The mattress is fine, the pillow he liberated from his older brother comfy under his only faintly damp hair. The blanket is warm.

 

What _is_ uncomfortable is said large lump of an older brother _also_ inhabiting the bed.

 

“Stop fidgeting,” Dori mutters, when Nori tries to settle himself into a good position.

 

Vindictively, Nori wriggles again. One of his feet poke Dori’s head – he thinks his ear, judging by the cold metal that brushes against his big toe – and Dori reaches behind him to smack him.

 

“Do you _ever_ stop?”

 

“I’m trying to get comfortable!” he protests, giving the covers another tug. “And you’re stealing _all_ the blankets, give me some!”

 

Dori growls low in his throat, but relinquishes his iron grip on the blankets. In thanks, Nori shifts his feet so they’re away from his brother’s head. He rolls onto his side and cushions his head with his arms.

 

He’s almost asleep, and Dori’s voice makes him jump. “What are you planning on doing next?”

 

“Sleeping,” he mutters and tries to squish his face into the pillow without putting it over his head. He can’t sleep with anything covering it; he starts panicking and stops breathing.

 

His brother is like a dead weight in the bed, “You’ve put us in danger.”

 

“I’ll leave in the morning then,” and he’d jump out of the bed immediately if he wasn’t slightly tangled in the bedclothes. He’s awake now, anyway. “I’m _terribly sorry_ to inconvenience you.”

 

“No, I –”

 

“Would you prefer I leave _now_?”  Because, damn it all, Nori is _tired_. He’s been on edge for a week, and there’s no pay-out. He doesn’t work long jobs often, he doesn’t have the patience, but when he does there are mountains of gold waiting for him. There are none this time, just a scrawny kid. Nori’s fucked up. “Because I might end up waking Ori if I do, and you’re still insistent on him going to bed ridiculously early.”

 

Dori’s hand fastens around Nori’s ankle when he goes to move off the bed, “Don’t.”

 

And Nori doesn’t, because Dori sounds – upset?

 

“I’m – worried about you,” his brother says hesitantly, after a few minutes have passed in the darkness. His hand is warm on Nori’s leg. “I don’t – this is bigger than a few stolen spoons, Trouble. This is –” Dori swallows.

 

“I left a body in the cell,” Nori blinks up at the ceiling. “The guard, he had hair my colour. I – I had a dagger in my boot.”

 

There is silence.

 

“That is – I am –” He can _hear_ the workings of his brother’s brain, as Dori tries to find words that won’t condone the fact Nori stabbed the guard, but won’t condemn him either. “So,” Dori says instead. “Hair colour. We’ll need to change yours, and –”

 

“I’ve been calling him the kid, in my head.”

 

“You would, Trouble,” the bed – wooden, they can’t afford a stone one – creaks as Dori shifts into a more comfortable position. Nori imagines him wrapping the blanket into his arms like he used to do when they were little, and smiles slightly. “We can’t call him that, though.”

 

“Well, we cou – wait, _what_?” He sits bolt upright, his brother making a grumbling sound as his leg jerks and he kicks Dori in the head. “What’s your plan?”

 

“Do you have a better idea?” Dori huffs. “Because, unless you do, I don’t see any choices save turning him out on the street or – keeping him here.”

 

“The Ri-son prince? We’re not living in a fairy tale.”

 

“Again,” and Dori sounds like he’s gritting his teeth, because no one can get under Dori’s skin like Nori. “If you have a better idea, I’ll be _delighted_ to hear it.”

 

He opens his mouth, and then closes it with a snap, because he _doesn’t_ have a better idea, and he _wasn’t_ thinking when he spirited the kid away. If he’d had any sense, he’d have dropped the kid in the street and told him to avoid the main roads, and he says as much as he settles back down into the bed.

 

“He wouldn’t last five minutes,” Dori says. “You – he’s not ok. And he’s –”

 

“Naïve.”

 

“Sheltered,” his brother counters. “And scared, Nori. He’s very, _very_ scared.”

 

“Yeah, my heart _bleeds_.”

 

Dori slaps his leg, but Nori’s already feeling – bad? for his words. The boy in his bed has been coddled and protected all his life, but it’s not his fault, any more than it’s Nori’s fault that he’s a Son of Ri brought up by his older brother. He might be a good kid, Nori doesn’t know. But it isn’t fair to –

 

“And what sort of genius leaves a sheltered kid like that _alone_ in a coup?” he demands, shifting uncomfortably.

 

“They might be dead, Nori.”

 

“I’m going to take him out of Erebor and away from here,” Nori says after a pause. “He’s not staying here. Like you said, it’ll get you into trouble.”

 

There’s a rustling sound; Dori is perhaps shaking his head. “I’m no expert –”

 

“– Elf-shagging grump –”

 

“– _Charming_. As I was saying, before your rude interruption,” Dori’s tone brooks no argument: it says _insult me again and I’ll kick you out of the bed_. “I’m fairly sure that the mountain gates will be the _first_ place they check. So, for the moment, he’s going to have to stay here.”

 

“Because his idiot family abandoned him,” Nori growls at the ceiling. “Bloody nobs.”

 

\---

 

Nori called him “the kid”.

 

But he’s Ori’s age, and that would be – strange.

 

He’s curled up in a ball in Nori’s bed, pillows and blankets as armour and shield. He’s not making any sound, but Ori doesn’t think he’s asleep.

 

Ori unwinds his scarf and discards his breeches on the floor.

 

_Pick them up and fold them!_ his inner Dori scolds, _Otherwise you’ll look a right state in the morning!_

 

Normally he’d ignore the inner Dori, but he does have someone staying in his room that isn’t family. So he probably should do as he’s told. Princes don’t have clothes scattered about the floor, he doesn’t think.

 

So he folds up his abandoned clothes and changes into his nightshirt. The prince has his spare one, he thinks. He’s not sure. Dori put him to bed, like he was a tiny dwarfling in his twenties or thirties.

 

(But then, it stops Dori fussing over him.)

 

He punches his pillows into a comfortable position and tugs the blankets over him. He’s about to roll over and close his eyes – he falls asleep quickly, unlike his brothers – when he hears a hitching of breath from the other bed.

 

“Are you… ok?”

 

The prince has done nothing but cry since he got here, really, but Ori can’t blame him. Dori’s a fusspot, Nori’s unreliable, and their mam is… absent, but his stomach aches at the idea of losing them. _Any_ of them.

 

At Ori’s words, the prince curls further into his tight ball and huddles under the blankets.

 

Ori chews his lip, internally weighing up the pros and cons of going to see him. It’s not as if he doesn’t _like_ physical contact, considering that he spent all the evening with Dori, but what if he only wanted that because Dori reminded him of his mam or da? What if he just wants to be left alone now?

 

The prince is muffling his sobs in the blankets, but it’s not silencing them. He must be biting down on the covers.

 

If he doesn’t stop crying soon he’ll start dry-heaving. He saw it happen once with Nori, when Dori had to sew up his shoulder. The house had stunk of burning flesh for _days_.

 

“I’m going to get… into bed with you,” Ori warns. He grabs his own blankets and hesitantly presses a knee into the mattress. The prince scoots over readily enough, and soon they’re pressed front-to-back on Nori’s bed. He tucks the other blanket over the top of the two of them.

 

Suddenly, the prince flips over so they’re face to face, and peers out of his nest of blankets. His red-rimmed eyes are huge and brown, and his features are quite… delicate. If he wasn’t a prince, he’d probably have got picked on.

 

“Are you too warm?” He’s already reaching out a hand behind him to tug down the blankets, but he stops when the other shakes his head. “Oh… ok then.”

 

And he shifts that bit closer, so their knees are pressing.

 

It seems enough for the prince, anyway. Ori watches him take deep, steadying breaths, fingers toying with one of the edges of the blankets.

 

On a whim, he pulls the blankets over their heads. It’s almost unbearably warm, but… nice. It feels like a shield, like the rest of the world has… gone. Like an invisibility cloak; they’re separated from everyone else by barriers of wood and rock and cloth.

 

“What’s your name?” he whispers.

 

The prince swallows convulsively. He’s still shaking a bit, but it can’t be with cold. “Kili,” his voice is hoarse and rusty from what Ori presumes is lack of use. “Son –” and he shudders, his mouth closing up as he chokes back a sob.

 

“It’s ok,” even though it’s not. “I don’t know who my da is, so we can skip the niceties.” Kili blinks up at him, tears clumping his eyelashes together, and it’s an audience if Ori has ever had one. “Well, I’m a Son of Ri, aren’t I?”

 

He used to smack Dori and Nori around, Ori knows that much. Dori scared him off before he was born, anyways.

 

Nori’s the only one that’s met his da. He was a bard.

 

“You’ve met the important people, anyway,” Ori says instead. Kili doesn’t need to know all of that. “Dori and Nori are my older brothers. I’m a scribe – or I _will_ be, soon. I’m almost done on my apprenticeship. It’s taken a bit longer than normal because of the money.”

 

The prince nods. They’re so close that their noses are almost touching. “Nori said, when we were –”

 

“I dread to think what Nori said about us,” he is blathering now, but it’s distracting Kili. “Him’n Dori don’t get on very well. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in their room right now; I bet they’re bickering something _awful_.”

 

They both fall silent; sure enough, the voices of his elder brothers can be heard faintly through the wall. It’s difficult for Ori to distinguish words, but he grins when he hears Nori complain about Dori stealing the blankets.

 

It doesn’t do the same to Kili, who huffs out a breath like it’s going to turn into another sob. The prince reaches out and grips Ori’s wrist in a surprisingly bruising grip. Ori bites down on the inside of his lip and tries to turn it into something more comfortable – maybe take his hand? – but he can’t; it’s too tight.

 

“I have – had – I don’t…” Kili’s voice is thick with suppressed tears, but none actually fall, from what he sees. “Fili. He’s m-my brother. I don’t know – if – if –”

 

“If he’s ok,” Ori finishes. There’s a dull ache in his chest at the idea, and all of a sudden he wants nothing more than to crawl into his brothers’ bed and cling to them. Instead, he leans forward and presses his forehead to Kili’s. “So he – you didn’t see –”

 

Kili screws his eyes closed and takes deep breaths that make his entire body quake. He lets go of Ori’s wrist. “We – we had to run? And –”

 

But whatever happened next overwhelms him, because he’s chewing on his lip and making small whimpering sounds; he’s trying _so_ hard not to cry again that it just makes him seem sadder. His hands are shaking in their tightly balled fists.

 

When Ori had heard what had happened at court, he hadn’t felt anything. The Durins had never done anything for him or Dori; the best they could hope for was to be forgotten and ignored.

 

He’d been a little more perturbed when the master scrivener hadn’t turned up for work, but he’d never had much to do with Lord Balin anyway. The Guild would replace him, and someone else would sign off on his apprenticeship.

 

He’d never really – thought about the fact the Durins were people, as well as rulers. That there were brothers and mothers and fathers, that there were princes _his age_.

 

“Well,” Ori whispers. “We’ll find him, then. _You_ will, but I’ll help you. If you look really sad at Dori I’m sure he’ll help, too. If you don’t know – he might be ok.”

 

Kili reaches up with one fist to scrub at his eyes, and opens his mouth to say something, when Nori’s voice floats in – caught, perhaps, on the wind, in the cracks in the building, or borne on the wings of meddling sprites.

 

_“His idiot family abandoned him. Bloody nobs.”_

 

All of a sudden, Kili goes very rigid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I didn't realise it had been two weeks. Sorry! 
> 
> I have a lot of feels about the 'Ri Family. And the 'Ri Mama. My backstory for them in this is quite similar to the one I have for the Fitzris, tbh...


End file.
